Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1887-07-28
The Saloon Idea of Liberty.


Liberty is very popular goddess, and
is invoked in both good and bad causes
The Saloon claims her as its special de-
| ity. and would defy all society In her
sacred name. Under her charmed in,
fuence it would place every man, wo-
man and child and have them, one and
all, drink to her health at its bars. 1t
would remove her symbols from state>
houses and government halls and put
them in inches in its own temples over
kegs and casks and TASKS. Liberty is
for the Saloon, and its altar fires should
never be quenched day or night. Liberr
erty is not for Sunday, nor for sobriety,
nor for peace and order, nor for society
at all. except as society is for the Sa-
loon.
All laws on the statute books limiting
the Saloon are laws against liberty. A
man may eat what he will, drink what
he will, and wear what he will. These
are absolute individual rights, says
the Saloon, especially the right to drink.
If men may not be interfered with in
any of these respects, so may may not l
be interfered with! Theirs is an irde-
feasible right. so is mine. If they may
drink, I may brew and sell. Our rights
are bound up together.
If men will drink when they will and
what they will, the Saloon holds that it
may encourage them to drink deep and
drink often. If they have the indefeas-
able personal right to drink, they have
the same right to get drunk. Who shall
say that a man may take one glass at a
time, but not two? who shall say that
the Saloon may not fill his glass as often
as it chooses? If he chooses and it
chooses that he drink till he becomes
inflamed to madness and commits crime,
whose business is it? 1t is all done un-
der the auspices of Liberty.
If the Saloon has an inalienable, il
limitable right to sell, and patrons have
an indefeasable right to buy, who has
the right to prescribe days and hours
when this right of sale shall be sus+
pended? If it is right to sell it is right
to sell for profit, and in the last
analysis only business principles
should govern the sale at all. The
Saloon may, therefore, not only
stand open at all times for the accom-
mediation of all who choose to buy, but
it may use such devices as it thinks
proper to induce custom. Old drinkers
will erelong die. The young must,
therefore, be educated as patrons of the
bar; and measures must be adopted to
counteract those reformatory move
ments which rob the Saloon of so many
of its customers.
The liberty of the individual drinker
what is it? 1t is, according to the
Saloon idea, to drink; 1t is not liberty
to abstain. Abstinence in an old and
hard drinker were an outrage On liber-
ty, and such an outrage is not seldom
resented by forcing the reformed man
to return to his old habits. Our readers
will remember the details of a case re1
ported in the daily press, few months
ago, where reformed sot was compell-
ed by physical force to swallow tina.
which had wrecked his early life, and
which he had but recently sworn never
to taste again. He was dosed so heavi-
ly that the next morning he was found
dead in the wagon which the jewellers
had used to carry him about town, as an
illustration of the Saloon idea of what a
man should be.
The Saloon idea of liberty is
it? 1t is the utmost liberty for the Sa-
l0on.-N. Y. Independent.